The Bounty Gone Wrong
by pikachu13
Summary: Samus gets hired to retrieve a small item on a distant planet for a large bounty, but all is not what it seems when she arrives. Later, she encounters one of Mother Brain's most fearsome underlings...Ridley.


Metroid

**The Bounty Gone Wrong**

The hot wind blew across the scorched wastelands. A sickening crunch broke the silence. Samus Aran lifted up her foot and saw a crushed shell underneath. It was obvious that the place where she now stood was underwater as some point in the past. She trudged on, dragging her feet. She could hear the sand tinking off her armor suit as the wind blew up a small sandstorm.

If it kept up, she'd have to switch her visor to a better setting to allow her to see through the dust storm. Luckily, she managed to reach her destination before that happened. About a few feet away from her was an enormous nautilus shell, laying motionless on its side. It was as big as a baseball diamond. Samus slowly approached the opening, her arm cannon at the ready. She really didn't want to go inside, but then she thought,

"Hey, work is work. If I don't get that missing comm-link back to those scientists on Karakk, I aint gonna see no dough."

She let out a quick sigh, and crept into the shell's opening. As soon as the shade of the shell covered her, she started to get extremely hot. She could feel her sweat dripping down her back.

"Geez, this guy could really use some air conditioning…"

She marched on in search if the comm-link. The scientists told her its signal was still active, and since it was pitch black inside the shell, most likely she wouldn't miss the light it would emit. She heard the walls moving. It sounded like a slimy creature was possibly in the corridor with her. Then she saw a faint yellow light up ahead. She walked up to it and reached for it, but a transparent layer of slimy flesh stood in the way.

"Oh great."

Samus knew exactly what the problem was. The creature making the slimy noise in the corridor had tentacles, and it must have found the comm-link and tried to eat it. She heard a small screech and suddenly felt herself being squeezed from every angle. The tentacled being was trying to suffocate her.

Samus used her quick thinking and entwined her legs around one of the closest tentacles and squeezed as hard as she could. Her plan had worked; the creature winced in pain from the metal legs of her armor suit and dropped her to the ground. She rolled backwards and began to charge her ice beam.

Since the creature was organic, and the comm-link component was electronic, she assumed the easiest way to get it out of the creature would be to freeze, then shatter it. Less slimy mess was the whole idea. The idea of alien bodily fluid exploding over her recently polished body suit armor wasn't a very pleasant thought.

She released the charge and the blast hit its target and she could hear the ice solidifying the entire creature in place. When the sound stopped, she launched a missile from her arm cannon. There was a loud crack and the ice shattered into shards. The homing beacon of the comm-link was now audible, but barely. It emitted a faint beep allowing Samus to locate it, pick it up, and then she turned and started to walk out of the cave. After arriving at her gunship, she leaped to the top of it, and the platform lowered her inside. She set her coordinates to Karakk, and set the autopilot. She decided to just lean back, relax, and dream of what pleasures awaited her once she would receive the enormous bounty from the scientists.

After about 45 minutes, she arrived on the planet. She exited her ship from the docking bay and walked toward the research facilities. She could see there was a dark mist looming over the scientists' lab. As she walked closer, he noticed the door was smashed open. Samus felt her heart in her throat and ran inside.

When she arrived at the room where she first spoke to the scientists, she saw that they were each at opposite sides of the room, facing away from her wearing dirty lab coats. The lab was a mess. She took one step in the room and her foot crushed an already broken glass vile. The scientists heard the intrusion and quickly turned and threw off their coats to reveal themselves. They were Space Pirates!!

They leaped at Samus from opposite ends of the room. She was completely not ready for them. One managed to grab her arms while the other went for her legs. Since their hands were very large and their fingers long, they held a tight grip on her.

The pirates howled their language into the air till a dark reptilian figure slowly turned the corridor and started to approach. It had glowing yellow eyes, a sharp whipping tail, enormous bat-shaped wings on its back and a long beak like a pteranodon, only its mouth was lined with sharp razor-like teeth. It was Ridley. The space pirate commander.

Samus' eyes grew large and she started to struggle, but the pirates wouldn't loosen their grip on her. If anything, they were holding tighter. The red flying lizard cracked an evil smile, and bared his gleaming teeth. He outstretched a finger, and tapped on her visor.

"Well, if it isn't the gullible bounty hunter Samus Aran. I'm amazed you let yourself get caught like this, you disappointed me. I expected your capture would be very exhausting and difficult to achieve, but I guess not. No matter, I have you now and that's all that matters. You've meddled in my affairs and have been a thorn in my side for too long, I think its time I returned the favor."

With the same outstretched finger, he quickly jabbed his sharp claw into her side, piercing right through her body suit and broke the skin. She resisted the urge to scream in pain and just grunted through clenched teeth. Ridley enjoyed watching her flinch in pain, but wanted to see more.

He used four of his razor sharp claws and quickly slashed them over her abdomen. It penetrated the armor suit and reached right through to her smooth, flawless abs beneath. She lay there helpless, bleeding. It was too much for her. She yelled and winced in pain, while Ridley grinned with pure pleasure. She knew Ridley was just toying to get a reaction out of her, but she didn't want to give him the pleasure of hearing her yelps of pain, but this time she could not hold it in.

"This little game is getting out of hand." She thought.

So she took matters into her own hands. With what strength she had, she squirmed and twisted till one of her arms was free, (luckily it was the one with the arm cannon!) and she blasted at her frontal attacker, which happened to be Ridley, but he was way too quick for her.

She took that second of freedom and engaged into her morph ball, and nuked the two closer space pirates that were standing on either side of her. The blast from the bomb did its job of destroying everything in its path, but Ridley managed to fly out of the lab to safety before the blast wave hit him.

Samus morphed back to herself and lay on the ground, looking up at the destroyed ceiling of the lab. She knew it wasn't safe for her to remain there, but she could barely move. The pain was too severe. She clearly needed help. She remotely called her ship, till it was hovering overhead. Since the bomb took out the ceiling, there was just enough room for it to land.

As it touched down, a green furry life form with big shiny eyes and dangly antennas emerged from her ship. It was an etecoon. Then, two more popped out and they all skittered towards her. They were small, but strong enough to lift and drag Samus back to her ship. As soon as she was inside, one of the etecoons jumped on the ship's controls and pushed a button.

A green light then shone on Samus and scanned her from head to toe. The cuts from Ridley began to heal, and in seconds, she was completely fine! She sat up and the other two etecoons approached her, making cooing noises. She patted one on the back of its head and said,

"I saved you guys twice…you know you don't have to keep returning the favor, but thanks anyway, I don't know what I'd do without you guys."

She stood up, sat at the helm and navigated the ship back home. She had escaped death this time, but she learned a valuable lesson today. Never again would she fall prey to an obvious ambush setup such as that, no matter how high the promised bounty was. She hit the thrusters and her ship blasted off for the cosmos, leaving a light trail in its wake.


End file.
